


Like Talking To A Mirror

by hydesboy



Category: The Umbrella Academy (Comics), The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: accidently meeting your other universe self, comic and show meeting, death but they get better, death mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:27:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25610566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hydesboy/pseuds/hydesboy
Summary: It was like talking to a mirror, but the mirror was more dressed in a more gaudy way than anything that he'd ever be caught dead in, though perhaps that was appropriate.Comic!Klaus and Show!Klaus get to talk in the awkward waiting time before they were sent out of purgatory and back into the world of the livingDid I write this because I'm hyped for the second season? Of course I did, that's very on brand for me
Comments: 2
Kudos: 83
Collections: One-Shot Goldmine





	Like Talking To A Mirror

It was not the first time that The Séance had died, and it was almost definitely not going to have been the last time his heart fell still. Once or twice he had even joked that the funeral he was perpetually dressed for was his own, as he couldn't say how long it'd be before it was needed again. It had once been exceptionally alarming for him to wake up in a world that was so void of colour as he was, his own monochromosity causing him to blend in better there in the odd purgatory space than he had ever done in the world of the living, but it had long since become business as usual. All he has to do is wait until the figure he would have to assume was a god would arrive in whatever form they chose to take that time, nod through whatever inevitable lecture he was to receive, then be sent on his merry way to suffer from whatever it was that had sent him to the afterlife that time. This shouldn't have been something that he should have gotten used to, but he was the bridge between the living and the dead, even if he often wished that he was anything but this.

As a force of habit rather than out of any sense of necessity, The Séance let out a gasp as he sat up in the black and white world of the dead, even the flash of read of his floral shirt - almost comically bright against his paper white skin - was muted, as color had began to be sucked away in the moments before his consciousness was tossed back at him like an old shirt that had been discarded time and time again. This was nothing new, but what was new was that there was a second gasp coming a matter of seconds after his own. Now, this was new, he'd never run into anyone this close to the realm of the living - this did not mean he had not run into anybody at all there, as the closer he happened to stray towards the dead, despite never permitted to go so far, he occasionally saw a wandering soul going about their afterlife business - that was not himself or the entity that had dominion in this strange domain. Well, that was true until this particular time.

"The fuck?" he asked before he managed to catch himself, not that he necessarily would have bothered to catch himself either way.

It was clear on the other person's face that the feelings were very much mutual. Even under the strange muting light the area seemed to have and when compared to himself, this unfamiliar man seemed radiating with health, a touch of colour still clear in his skin despite everything, the faintest lingering twinkle in his eyes, a twinkle that was accompanied by much confusion. The man tilted his head to one side, brown curls lacking any of the blood that they had mere moments ago, no bruises staining his skin, facial hair free of blood and unpleasant facial liquids, and all in all, looked far more alive now than he did in the last few heartbeats he walked the mortal coil. His clothes, a less than simply pink shirt cropped in line with his bottom rib and a pair of trousers that were loosely laced at the sides, and a pair of shoes that were either painted or had experienced a tragedy, were lacking the mud he had unceremoniously fallen into.

"Who are you?" The Séance asked, brows furrowed, which was visible for once as he was lacking his sunglasses, not quite sure how he was supposed to take the fact that he was not the only one waking up there. When his questioning was unanswered for a little too long, he mirrored the other's cocking of his head. Rather pointedly, he fixed his position, curling up into a next cross legged sit, hands resting delicately upon his knees and making it obvious that he wasn't going to be going anywhere anytime soon.

"Klaus," the other, who was evidently named Klaus, explained, but at a look of bewilderment - one of the only emotions that the monochromatic man could properly feel anymore ) that followed this, he added a clumsy and begrudging, "Uh, Hargreeves."

"Wait, what?" exclaimed The Séance, "Are you messing with me?" When this was not met with laughter or anything of the like, and just before the silence reached a level that one might consider awkward he added, "That's my name."

"It's my name!" the other returned, clasping at his chest with a click of rings against the necklaces hanging there. Had there been proper sunlight there, this would have caused a pleasant twinkling in the light. This was a simple enough action, but the paler of the two could have sworn he had caught sight of something familiar on the palms of the person's hands.

"Hands." the flatter toned fellow said, not quite making it clear that this was a request and not just the stating of a word that came to his mind at that moment. When nothing was done to show palms, he took the initiative and raised up his hands, showing the man the tattoos that decorated each of them.

For a moment, it seemed that Klaus was about to reach out and take The Séance's hands but, after a metaphoric heartbeat passed them by, he raised his own hands up making them a mirror of one another. Both men shared identical tattoos across their hands, one reading 'HELLO' and the other 'GOODBYE', which was fitting for the walking ouija boards that the two were. As if they were drawn to, at precisely the same moment each brought their hands in until they pressed their palms against the other's, as if in some very strange and macabre game of paddy-cake. They had only touched for a millisecond at most but it felt like a bolt of lightning ripped through the body of The Séance, who recoiled immediately, and if the similar reaction was to be believed, it was a mutual experience.

"Are you... me?" asked Klaus, the moment of clarity that the shock had brought him forcing this realisation onto him, "Or, like, a part of me? A me-but-not-me?"

"The last, I think?" the other responded, chewing on his black stained lip in thought, having about the same knowledge about the situation as the other.

There was a long period of silence following this, neither really wanting to breech the topic of just how bizarre and entirely impossible the situation was. It was impossible, of course, but it just so happened that they had both happened to die at precisely the same second on different plains of the same existence, winding up in the same part of purgatory. The possibility of this had been so slim that it hadn't even been taken into account, though evidently it should have since it had miraculously managed to occur.

"Well," the heavier dressed individual eventually began, "I suppose someone had you trapped before you ended up here then?"

"What?"

"They put shoes on you." came the response, a vague enough gesture towards the offending shoes with a dismissive sort of action, as if the sight of the footwear was a surprise to him.

"Nobody put them on me," the other returned, "They're my nicest shoes! I thought they made my outfit!"

"They might," replied The Séance, not sounding all too impressed by the shoes, or even really the outfit itself, "But is a good outfit really worth cutting off the better of your, or I guess our, powers?"

"They what?" Klaus replied, sounding so genuinely confused that it caused the other to falter, his lip twitching in a show of confusion.

"Are you saying you can still levitate with shoes on?"

Evidently this question had hit something in Klaus as, without even really thinking about what he was doing, he had sprung to his feet. He almost fell doing this but managed to catch himself at the last second. Had they been a little more alive, he would have surely have had to put up with a mighty head spin from it, but thankfully he was left no more and no less disoriented than he was before he stood up.  
"We can levitate?" he exclaimed far louder than he necessarily should have, one hand fluttering to cover his mouth in a gasp that seemed better suited for a Shakespearean stage-play.

"Of course we can levitate," responded the seated individual, "When we're sent back, lose the shoes so you can try. Careful with doorways and things though," he paused, leaning back into more of a lying position in the stark white grass, "Enough heads would be hit there after Spaceboy got his new body." This had been intended as a joke, but without the ability to make his voice anything more than flat then it didn't quite come across as such.

"How do I do it?"

This was met with a shrug, The Séance busying himself with shading his eyes against the sun that had no right being as bright as it was at any given time there.  
"How do you walk?" A beat passed, "Just practice a bit, and it'll come. You've been stunting it so it might take a bit, but you'll get there." This had been intended to be helpful, or at the very least reassuring, but as it had long since become second nature to him, it was as hard to explain as breathing might be.

"Hey," Klaus started as he sat himself back down, legs crossed and elbows resting on his knees, hands holding his chin up, "D'ya think any of this gets easier?"

"This?"

"You know, this hero stuff. All the comics and stories they tell about us makes it all seem so fun and easy, but it's just shitty and the hardest thing there is!" There was a whine to Klaus' voice with this, but it was the exhaustion, the pain of a man broken over and over again that rang the loudest in his voice. It was the sort of sound that could break a person's heart if they were left with enough of a heart that could still be broken.

"No," came the response, "It won't get easier, never can, never will," this came out in a resigned sigh, "But that's just how life is, shitty and hard, then we die. Well, maybe not 'we' specifically, not if we just keep getting stuck here for a bit before going back, but we as people. We suffer, get our teeth kicked in a couple times, literally or metaphorically, and its up to us to find a way to numb it all before it gets too much."

"And if it's already too much?"

"Then you're just not numb enough." The Séance said as simply as once might when discussing the weather. He'd been numb for so long, but he was still forever trying to fill the cracks that kept appearing in the blissful apathy that was forced upon him to combat the overwhelming world that he had no control over. If he could simply control his own mind that would be a win, but a win that was chemically induced and was ruining him as fast as he ruined himself.

"I'd like to be numb." Klaus mused wearily, looking as if the very weight of the world was on his shoulders, and perhaps it even was, in its own odd way.

"Do you?"

Before Klaus was able to reply to this, there was a third in their midst all of a sudden. The entity had, on this occasion, taken the form of a cowboy - this was an aesthetic they seemed to be quite fond of as it was one they frequently took, others including an unassuming little girl, a Victorian dandy, and a kilted Scotsman - and had not been there one second and was there the next.  
"I ain't got the time ta deal wiv both o' ya righ' now. Don't get yerselves killed again fer a while, ya hear me?" they began, pausing before pointing to The Séance, "You gotta deal wiv everythin' that's 'bout ta happen, th' others are gonna need yer eyes more than ever," once more they paused before pointing to Klaus, "And yer gonna have ta practice harder before things kick up a notch again. Now, boy, get outta here and be careful when gettin' up, I don't wanna have ta see yer faces back here just after I send you back."

Just as their last seconds of being not alive was coming to its close, Klaus offered The Séance a lazy salute and it was returned by one of his own just as the horrible feelings of being alive, and more importantly being alive and in pain, invaded the absolute nothingness that he'd just started to getting used to.


End file.
